Thread 8 - TalkLair: “Brewing Russell's teapot”

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of previous threads (thread 7).

The new lair of JTT escapees is all cosy and homey; we have truly settled here. Outside, the garden is blooming with spring flowers. Inside, the hearth is glowing, pictures are up on the walls, rugs are down on the floors (and assorted pets curled up on them).

We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

Morning all, just because, here’s a cat. And then a dog.

Cat: https://twitter.com/gatinarios/status/1675893381573091328?s=61&t=Q6bG6UpgNNK6wBpPUj7sDg

Dog: https://twitter.com/contextdogs/status/1676209996223135744?s=61&t=Q6bG6UpgNNK6wBpPUj7sDg

Poor wet woppits.

We've had lots of rain but I'm still having to water recently planted things. And it's perishing cold - lit the wood burner three days running.

What a clever sheepdog!

I've been enjoying this thread. It doesn't quite stay on topic but is still interesting.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4841932-medical-things-you-didnt-know

I started reading that thread and then wimped out. Interesting but somewhat squeamishness inducing. Maybe I should go back.

I can't get my head in my work this morning. I can't think why I'm so knackered; it must be my age. I have a big cup of good coffee in front of me to help.

Plus, I'm waiting on the delivery of a new guitar - nothing too exciting (though I am) or expensive; it's for doing pub gigs with to save my really exquisite best guitar, which is getting banged about.

Probably a distraction, but even so, it's disappointing how everything slows down ...

I started reading it but gave up as quite a few posts I read weren’t correct.

On guitars… I dug mine out the other night but my capo has gone missing. Where would I put a capo??!! It’s the sort of thing I swear I’ve seen around somewhere, but where? It has one use!

That dog is delightful and clearly enjoys the work. Did you notice the sound of the sheep's feet as they ran through the mud? It sounded like rain.

All those people opening the window 'for the soul to leave' after someone dies.

I didn't do that for either of my parents and by that reasoning their souls should be here in this room with me right now, since that's where both of them died. Or do souls sneak out eventually when windows or doors are open?

Souls don't need windows or doors, those are for the corporeal.

Yes, you have to skip past those. It's just one of those Internet things, that (no matter the topic) some people will authoritatively post incorrect stuff!

I enjoyed the discussion about opening windows, thought it was a lovely gesture. And I'm 100% materialist atheist.

That’s an excellent sheep dog!

I also love the cat in the pineapple helmet. It’s so very wrong but that cat looks majestic! An unexpectedly good look.

Even if they needed a gap to escape through, surely souls would get out though gaps under doors and the like?

That medical things thread was fascinating. The ones that boggled my mind were the ones that said nobody. One blind had ever developed schizophrenia and that people with severe hearing impairments were more likely to develop psychosis and hallucinations, and that deaf people with psychotic outbreaks might see disembodied hands using sign language. I suppose that's the equivalent of hearing voices!

@duc748 - I'm putting this here for you, as a thank-you for the Commodores' Nightshift link on another thread. I hadn't heard that for years.

Here's Dion (yes of 1950s "and the Belmonts" fame) with his Song for Sam Cooke (Here in America). It's from 2020. He's in remarkably good voice for a man in his 80s.

Whoops, it would help if I actually put in the link, maybe?

@Gonners

Thanks, that's just lovely! I knew a girl back then who was a massive fan of his contemporary (at the time) stuff, she used to carry his LPs around with her, and insist you played them everywhere she went! 😀But that is a beautiful song; I'm going to forward to a mate who I know will enjoy it.

That dog is so speedy!

I love that dog! She makes it look so easy.

So, in further me me me...

I sent Gonners' link to my friend, and thought I'd stop to read his blog. He is a Glasto stalwart, has been on the litter crew since the Year Dot. I first went to Glastonbury with him in 1979, and went with him and his siblings for many years. But I stopped going years ago. Anyway, he writes a lovely blog of his Glasto experience every year, recounting the friends from all over the world he has met there over the years; it's all very charming. Anyway, my antennae pricked up at this passage:

I wandered up to William’s Green and had a look at Carhenge which is an amazing structure built from 24 iconic vintage cars. There has been a Carhenge previously at Glastonbury in 1987. Thatcher’s nasty government had banned people from holding the Stonehenge summer solstice festival, so the Mutoid Waste Company built their own replica of Stonehenge at Glastonbury out of scrap cars. Their leader, the underground visionary designer Joe Rush has gone on to be world famous. On the Glasto website it says, ‘Carhenge is a tribute to the pillars of Counterculture and the free festival movement, the heroines and heroes from the margins of society, the non-conformists, punks, and visionaries whose courage and energy has shaped our culture from the underground out. From Quentin Crisp, pioneer of the trans community and author of The Naked Civil Servant, and legendary rock’n’roll guitarist, Chuck Berry, to fashion and environmental icon, Vivienne Westwood, and Hawkwind’s pioneering Sax player Nick Turner, who sadly passed away this year’.

and I thought, was QC really a 'pioneer of the trans community'? I honestly didn't know, so I turned to his Wiki page. It said,

Despite considering himself a gay man for most of his life, just before his death, Crisp wrote in an autobiography that he eventually came to feel that he was "not really homosexual", but was transgender.[6]

So whether a case of appropriation or not is maybe unclear, but it did make me think that for what might be called for want of a better term the 'Glastonbury generation' is such any easy fit for rainbow to latch onto. And actually, come to think of it, it's a pretty rum bunch of heroes and heroines!

As I only had a vague idea about Quentin Crisp, I Googled and was rather delighted by the subheading "English raconteur." What an excellent way to be summarised

Meanwhile, Cat Burglar persists in her attempts to adopt us as her second family.

Yesterday afternoon DH decided to sit outside for his big boring Teams meeting. I thought he was bonkers as it was cloudy and windy and not particularly warm, but he says the fresh air helps keep him alert in long meetings. Partway through, I got a photo message from him captioned "HELP."

Crisp wrote in an autobiography that he eventually came to feel that he was "not really homosexual", but was transgender.[6]

I just looked at ref. 6 from the wiki page on QC. The only mention of trans is in the title that pink news put on the article. This is the relevant quote:

My daydream as a child was of growing up to be a very worldly, very beautiful woman. Those were my only daydreams. I played games of make believe with very little girls in the neighborhood. I had no male friends at all. I only had girl friends who could be ruled and made to play parts in my daydreams.

I dunno - perhaps there's more in the autoB? But I'll go out on a limb and suggest that PK is talking its usual bollox, genuflecting to their private gods whenever they can in the hope of rainbows and divine approval, and not knowing that their gods are confected from a bit of pink plasticine, a fragment of paper with long words barely decipherable, a horror mask and a hidden razorblade.

I must mention the idea of Crisp being trans to my brother. He met the man a couple of times when he was living in New York. QC's number was in the phone book so bro phoned him up and offered to buy him lunch, to which QC said which restaurant he'd be in, adding 'I'll be sitting in the window, like a Dutch prostitute'. Apparently he was very pleasant and very formal, never using first names, only titles and surnames.

When Crisp was writing there were already plenty of stories of what were then called transexual men, notably Jan Morris. If Crisp had wanted to call himself trans he'd have done so (he would probably have had an easier time - his style of maleness was very confronting in the 1970s). His whole life was about massively courageous speaking, acting, and demonstrating his own truth.

Telling lies in order to appropriate him is a shabby betrayal of a brave human being - but that is part of the genderist playbook.